wrath by announcing insolently that he was
for governing the Americans as subjects of Great Britain, and for
restraining their trade and manufactures in subordination to those of
the mother country! So the struggle went on within the ministry as well
as without it; but the opponents of royal prejudice were heavily
handicapped; for the king, though stupid in general, had some political
skill and much authority. His ill-concealed personal hostility to his
"enemy," as he called Shelburne, threatened like the little cloud in
the colonial horizon. Nor was it long before Chatham, a dispirited
wreck, withdrew himself entirely from all active participation in
affairs, shut himself up at Hayes, and refused to be seen by any one who
wished to talk on business.

On May 13, 1767, colonial agents and merchants trading to America were
refused admission to hear the debates in the House of Commons. Upon that
day Townshend was to develop his scheme. By way, as it were, of striking
a keynote, he proposed that the province of New York should be
restrained from enacting any legislation until it should comply with the
"billeting act," against which it had heretofore been recalcitrant. He
then sketched a scheme for an American board of commissioners of
customs. Finally he came to the welcome point of the precise taxes which
he designed to levy: he proposed duties on wine, oil, and fruits,
imported directly into the colonies from Spain and Portugal; also on
glass, paper, lead, colors, and china, and three pence per pound on tea.
The governors and chief justices, most of whom were already appointed by
the king, but who got their pay by vote of the colonial assemblies, were
hereafter to have fixed salaries, to be paid by the king from this
American revenue. Two days later the resolutions were passed, directing
the introduction of bills to carry out these several propositions, and a
month later the bills themselves were passed.

Meantime the cabinet was again getting very rickety, and many heads were
busy with suggestions for patching it in one part or another. With
Chatham in retreat and the king in the ascendant, it seemed that
Townshend had the surest seat. But there is one risk against which even
monarchs cannot insure their favorites, and that risk now fell out
against Townshend. He died suddenly of a fever, in September, 1767. Lord
North succeeded him, destined to do everything which his royal master
desired him to do, and bitterly to re